Local designer creates new brand identity for town’s UK Town of Culture bid

Amelia Jones

A local designer has been working on a new brand for a Welsh town in their bid to be named UK Town of Culture.

Ian Clewett, from Aberangell in the Dyfi valley, has previously helped promote dozens of north Wales businesses. Among their projects, his company Formation Creative is also responsible for the re-branding of Conwy Brewery.

For this latest task, he decided to combine everything about mid Wales town Machynlleth’s culture into a single unifying logo.

He said: “The town is located in a stunning area of rolling hills, forests and mountains where the Dyfi river meets the sea. So my idea was to show the layered beauty of the landscape to create a logo that feels really positive, vibrant and energetic.”

“The town is also a really vibrant melting pot of all sorts of people – some having lived here for generations, many drawn here to the freedom and rawness of living here. I felt that needed to be expressed in a new way, that avoids relying on the usual local visual icons, such as the town’s clock tower.”

As well as the colourful logo, Ian has created new distinctive lettering for ‘Machynlleth’. This includes the combined letters such and the CH, LL and TH as they appear in the Welsh alphabet.

He added: “Integrating those Celtic roots into the logotype felt like a really fitting way to honour the Welsh language and highlight it to a wider audience.”

This inaugural UK Town of Culture competition is planned by the UK Government to celebrate towns across the country that demonstrate a strong commitment to arts, culture, and community engagement. Around a quarter of the population of Machynlleth have already been involved in shaping the town’s culture bid, which the steering committee believes makes it a strong contender.

If successful, Machynlleth would be given a bid development grant of £60,000 to work on a full application. The successful town will receive £3,000,000, while two runners-up will receive £250,000 to deliver a year-long programme of cultural activities that showcase their unique identity, inspire local participation, and attract visitors from across the UK and beyond.

The team behind the bid say that as well as adding to Machynlleth’s list of festivals and events, they are keen to include what young people value about living in the town, what is missing and how culture could better support their futures.